Wednesday, October 8, 2014

OTBR: A Narrow Street in Zagreb

Latitude: N 45° 49.680
Longitude: E 015° 56.220

A child on a road trip with his family asks, "Where are we?" and the father answers, "Let's check the map. We're off the blue roads [the Interstate Highways marked in blue on the road atlas]. We're off the red roads [the US and state highways]. We're off the black roads [the county highways]. I think we're off the map altogether." It was always my dream to be off the map altogether.

After the jump, a few of the random places (and I mean random literally) that I visited vicariously last month that are "off the blue roads".

in a house down a narrow street in Zagreb, Croatia

in a house in South Melbourne, a very desirable inner Melbourne area, with many restored Victorian terrace houses

inside a two story, tan stucco apartment building named "Central Park" in Glendale, California

down a quite drivable hardpack access road to the elecrical power lines in this area south of Baker, California ("Although online maps show a lovely blue 'lake' there is, in fact no water visible")

on the White Earth Indian Reservation in Minnesota, near Lake Itasca, the source of the Mississippi River

a few steps into a Minnesota woods (oak, aspen, ash, birch, and pine). ("The leaves are still green here, although I saw a few trees turning color")

just off the sidewalk near some evergreen trees in Maryland's Severn-Danza Park, home to the Chesapeake BMX Super Track

in a cornfield in rural Illinois, just 26 kilometers from the very first dashpoint report ever filed, by Markwell in June, 2001

in a fallow cornfield in Alabama ("which looked far different than the lush green crops visible on the Google Street View, although much of the rest of the scenery, from the red barn to the silver silos, looked eerily similar")

on a dairy farm in Pennsylvania ("They have a huge white barn, two big dark blue silos, and a pretty white frame house with a wide front porch")

in an already furrowed field near Oxnard, California, with plastic sheeting covering the tops of the furrows, indicating they are going to set strawberries

on a residential street of neat weatherboard cottages in Woodend, Victoria, where large numbers of people have moved to commute by train to Melbourne (and not far from Hanging Rock -- anyone remember the movie "Picnic at Hanging Rock?")

in front of the beige house with baby blue trim in Tucson, Arizona, just north of the aircraft "Boneyard" where thousands of aircraft are stored in the dry desert air

in the woods in Maine, down a gravel trail to nowhere that ends in woods ("Oh, yes, there was a small sign with #53, probably a cabin further up the road")

in the woods outside Boston, with a lake and large and beautiful homes, near Hopkinton where the Boston Marathon starts

close to the road in Austria near the border to Czech Republic, by some stakes to be used to build a snow fence to protect the road in winter

inside a fenced pasture in Wyoming ("We stopped briefly taking in the emptiness of the country after the tedious drive on I-80.")

just outside Santa Teresa County Park in San Jose, accessible via the Vista Loop trail ("the views of San Jose were pretty spectacular, making the mile-long hike -- uphill, both ways, I swear! -- well worth it.")

and out of reach on the Nellis Small Arms Range Complex north of Las Vegas, behind a locked gate and ample signage warning that the area is patrolled by military working dogs